IOSG Weekly Report｜Hyperliquid Guide: Disruptive Infrastructure or Overvalued Bubble?

Chainfeeds Guide:

In the past few months, Hyperliquid has garnered significant attention. This article aims to update everyone on the latest developments and expectations for the future.

Source:

Author:

IOSG Ventures

Opinion:

IOSG Ventures:Users can access a perpetual contract exchange with seamless UI/UX without KYC (though still subject to regional regulations). This is made possible by zero gas fees and low trading costs, a unique order cancellation and maker-only priority mechanism superior to other order types (such as IOC), which significantly reduces the harmful effects of high-frequency trading sniping (by more than 10x). The intuitive interface, one-click DeFi operations, ultra-fast trading experience (0.2-second block time, achieving 20,000 TPS on-chain through a unique consensus model), excellent market makers and liquidity provision, all initially bootstrapped by the Hyperliquid core team. In a crypto world where everyone in a bull market is urgently seeking convenient leverage channels (such as meme coins, prediction markets, derivatives, altcoin beta, etc.), perpetual contracts have found their footing as the simplest way to access leverage, achieving product-market fit. Subsequently, their airdrop began distribution—this airdrop covered nearly 94,000 wallets, with each participant receiving an average of $45,000 to $50,000 worth of HYPE tokens. There was no insider selling pressure, and broad user ownership fostered loyalty and alignment of interests. Notably, the Hypios community also offered extremely generous airdrops to its holders, and even meme coins on Hyperliquid maintained low selling pressure and strong holders. Since traders and DeFi power users received tokens, many chose to stake to reduce trading fees and deposit into the HLP vault, enhancing the trading experience and kickstarting a strong flywheel effect. Heavy users, empowered by newfound wealth, continued to be active, fee income was used to buy back tokens, reinforcing the product and market influence, and Hyperliquid attracted more users and trading volume. As a result, this large-scale distribution helped HYPE avoid the common post-airdrop price drop; in fact, in the following months, HYPE’s price soared by 1179%, rising from $3.90 at launch in November 2024 to $47 in August 2025. HyperEVM officially debuted on February 18. It is not a standalone chain but is secured by the same HyperBFT consensus mechanism as HyperCore, sharing state and essentially using a Cancun hard fork version without Blob. Developers can now access a mature, liquid, and high-performance on-chain order book. For example, a project can deploy an ERC20 contract on HyperEVM using standard EVM development tools and permissionlessly deploy the corresponding spot asset in HyperCore’s spot auction. Once linked, users can use the token in HyperEVM applications and trade it on the same order book. This empowers developers and the community by supporting broader use cases, allowing the large user base and liquidity aligned with Hyperliquid to further leave their mark on the ecosystem. It also improves liquidity by providing a composable, programmable layer, opening another avenue for Hyperliquid usage to flow back to participants. This also provides a way for projects outside the Hyperliquid ecosystem to join. For example, Pendle has integrated with HyperBeat as well as Kinetiq’s LST and LoopedHYPE’s WHLP & LHYPE, EtherFi and HyperBeat are launching preHYPE, Morpho offers vaults on HyperBeat, and top curators include MEV Capital, Gauntlet, Re7 labs, and others. The network effect of HyperEVM is not about cloning or EVM compatibility; its core is about creating a programmable financial operating system where code, liquidity, and incentives are natively aligned and instantly accessible. Liquidity is not fragmented; instead, as more use cases, yield sources, and protocols are integrated, liquidity multiplies. As the entire tech stack enriches, both users and developers benefit, making the Hyperliquid ecosystem the gravitational center of future DeFi. Hyperliquid has already successfully conquered the high-performance trading engine, providing a trading experience for spot and perpetual contracts that effectively mimics centralized exchange performance, including leverage trading and spot transfer functions, combined with a consumer-grade user experience for distribution channels. EVM, as a programmable execution layer, builds a programmable layer closely connected to user experience and liquidity centers. In terms of stablecoin infrastructure, Hyperliquid has successfully attracted $5.6 billion worth of USDH into its ecosystem. There are still vast opportunities to explore in the future, such as native fiat on/off ramps, payment solutions, Web2-level consumer applications, and risk management engines. In terms of tokens and liquidity, the buyback program led by the aid fund has so far accumulated 28 million HYPE repurchased, funded by 54% of total revenue, with an average daily buyback amount of $2.15 million. Currently, 38% of the total HYPE supply of 1 billion tokens is still dedicated to airdrops and incentives, which has the potential to further drive ecosystem usage but also increases the risk of selling pressure from increased circulating supply. Regarding USDC inflows, Hyperliquid continues to grow, with a current stock of about $4.4 billion, accounting for 71.11% of the total USDC locked on Arbitrum. Using the non-HLP trading volume metric (cumulative 4.3